Sunday, 18 October 2015

Female Rally Drivers After 1950: Russia

Anastasia Mironova, second left, collects awards from the Karelia State Championship with her team-mates.

Russia has produced quite a lot of female rally drivers, and
there are several active at the moment, in Russia and internationally. Language
barriers make it difficult to research all of their careers.

Elena
Baikova - Russian driver active since at
least 2010. She rallies a Subara Impreza almost exclusively, and competes in
Russia mainly, with a few excursions to Belarus. 2012 seems to have been her
best season: she achieved two top ten positions. The first was an eighth place
in the Rally Zolotye Kupola, and the second was a ninth in the Rally Rostov
Velikiy. That year, she was ranked 73rd in the Russian championship. In
subsequent years, she has come up against reliability problems, and has been
less consistent. Her best result in 2014 was 20th, in the Rally Peno. She drove
in six rounds of the Russia Cup, finishing three of them. Her cars were an
Impreza, Citroen Saxo and Volkswagen Polo. In 2015, she rallied a Subaru Impreza, but did not finish the Pushkinskye Gory Rally. She tried again with the car in the 2016 Rallye Belye Nochi, but retired after an off-road excursion. In 2017, she got the hang of the Impreza and was sixth in the Mini Rally Petrovskaya Versta. This was one of three finishes in the car.

Elena Golubkina– took
part in stage rallies in Russia in the 2000s, starting in 2005. Her first car
was a Citroen Saxo, and she remained loyal to the Citroen marque for several
seasons. During her first year, her best result was an eighth place, in the
Rally Ermak. She was also tenth in the Rally Vyatka, and later in the season,
driving a C2, won her class in the Novorossiysk Rally. In 2006 and 2007, she
mostly drove a C2, and although she did not reach the heights of the top ten,
she was 30thin the
2007 Rally Russia, an IRC round. After a shorter season in 2008, she seems to
have switched to cross-country rallying, in Russia and Asia. She was 25thin the 2010 Silk Way Rally, driving a
Mitsubishi, and was 50thin
the 2011 event, in the same vehicle.

Galina Grokhovskaya- campaigned a Lada in Finland and (presumably) the Soviet
Union, between 1989 and 1994. Her best result in Finland was 40th, in 1994,
despite her car being slow. Unlike some former Soviet drivers, she appeared to
be a self-funded privateer. Occasionally she co-drove for other drivers,
including Vladimir Turov in Finland in 1992.

Anastasia
Mironova - a regular in Russian rallies
since 2012. Her car has, so far, always been a Ford Fiesta. In 2012, her best
result was 17th, in the St. Petersburg Rally. The following year, she improved
this to a 15th place, on the same rally. She scored two top-twenty finishes in
2014, thirteenths at Vyborg and Yakkima. Her favoured surface appears to be
gravel, but she has run well in snow rallies, too. Her co-driver is usually
Alexey Krylov. She also competed in some rounds of the Russian ice-racing
championship in 2013. Driving a VAZ 211200, she scored a tenth and an eleventh
place in the SZZ Cup, in the St. Petersburg rounds. She was also 20th overall
in the Russian 1600 Cup, but her race results are not forthcoming. Between 2010
and 2013, she participated in several karting championships, at home and in
Russia. In 2015, she rallied a Ford Fiesta in Russia and Belarus, finishing in the top ten twice, in the Vyborg and St Petersburg Rallies. She was fourteenth in the 2016 Russian championship, in the Fiesta. Normally, she was in the top twenty finishers, and her best overall position was a tenth place in the Rally Ekover. In 2017, she did fewer rallies than previously. She drove the Fiesta and had a best finish of 23rd in the Karelia Rally.

Elena Sarieva – has made occasional starts in Russian
rallies since 2006, although often as a course car, rather than a competitor.
She drove a Mitsubishi Lancer in the Gukovo Rally in 2006, but did not finish,
due to problems with the car’s cooling system. In 2012, she drove in the Rally
of Latvia, in another Mitsubishi Lancer. She does not appear to have finished.
Her most recent appearance was in 2013, when she drove a Subaru Impreza as the
course car in the Rally Masters Show, in Russia.